Women remain at the core of an Onion-s Sob Story. Journalist Yogesh Bidwai has interviewed 60 of them—farmers, packagers, retailers, cooks, small-time restaurateurs and consumers—for insights into onion economics which make it to his newly released book Kandyachi Radkatha The Unique Academy Publications, Rs 150, 150 Pages. "At the outset, my book is about the soaring onion prices, the unreasonable annual onion shortage and the unexplained onion wastage [and decay] due to poor storage. But, at the heart of the sob story are women who suffer the most because of India-s failure to market the bulb crop," says Bidwai, 42, who has been studying onions through the gender lens for five years now. He calls it the "women-s crop" because the female gender is closely associated with onions—from plantation to consumption. The book is undoubtedly oriented towards statistics and macro issues of onion farming, onion market flaws and export regulations, but from the chapters peep unknown invisible women whose labour goes into the fluctuating onion trade.

Bidwai enjoys an onion-connect from the time he was born in 1977 in Lasalgaon, known for the GI-marked onions sold in the township-s trademark the world-s largest and oldest onion mart. Although his father was employed in the Nasik District Cooperative Bank and mother a homemaker, the immediate family had several onion-growers. Going to onion farms during vacations and eating the iconic Lalaji-s Bhel with finely cut onion adding the crunch was part of growing up joys. Schooling in Lasalgaon and nearby Vinchur involved interactions with children from farmers- families; onion truck loads coming to the Lasalgaon APMC Agricultural Market Produce Committee was a common sight. "In farms, packaging units, onion grading centres, retail mandis or kitchens, I have grown up seeing the bulb crop in the hands of women. Although women are not the frontrunners of the business, they are the backend toiling force… my mavshis and kakis who cook the best onion recipes remain intact in my consciousness," says Bidwai.